Gaspin in Aspen (or I'd rather ride my bike than be at the motherload)

So I loaded up the Durango and the wife and I headed up to Aspen, with the Kona proudly displayed on the roof rack. We are heading to Aspen to stay with the in-laws for the Motherload VB tournie. Saturday morning I awoke and drove up to snowmass to just do the dh stuff. I played on the ramps and on the course. Nothing exciting or anything, just played and goofed around. Some guys had some real long travel bikes and were doing the drops right before the track. Seeing it on video is neat, seeing being done in person, much cooler.

Then on Sunday morning I loaded up the bikes and My wife drove James and I to Snowmass. We did one run down and played a little in the park then headed to the Government trail. To get to the trail we took the lift up then over one ski run then STRAIGHT UP the run. No switchbacks or nuttin. Just straight up. Rested a minute and dropped in. The instant you start on this trail it is beautiful! A nice somewhat steep right hand bend in knee high grass and flowers over a bridge then into the woods. The trail was primo. Tacky so you stuck the turns but loose enough to have completely black feet when you are done. There were so many stream crossings and the coolest waterfall in a corner of a turn. It looked too perfect to be natural. It was almost as if it were put there for someones backyard water feature.

This ride started with alot of climbing (to me) and continued for a little while. Then opened up into some gorgeous meadows. After a while of riding we heard some thumping sound and stopped to try to figure it out. We could not. We thought it could be Elk rutting or something. But as a city boy, I have no idea what that would sound like. We set off again and after a few more minutes, the thumping grew louder and now another sound accompanied it. Guitar. We could hear the Snowmass jazz fest. If we were filming the ride, we wouldn't have needed background music for the dvd. LOL

We met up with a few other riders just as we got to this step up. James and I had stopped so I could play on it. He didn't because his bike is more of a commuter. But he really put it to the test and it held up well, until he tried to jump a speed bump and sent his wheel out of true.

The views along this trail were simply gorgeous. We stopped many times to just sit and take it in.

After a few hours we made it to the rock garden. This one is sweet. The coiler sucked everything up no problem. That's when we knew we were almost done.

THe end of this ride was spectacular. Super tight switchbacks that you had to start your next turn before you finished the first. And one that dropped away from a tree that was pretty intense. I decided to walk it. Then blazing through shoulder high flowers, sweet rich dirt just lifting off the tires. Nice straightaways that were long enough that if you were on your brakes too much, they'd just fade away. Then I came around a wide left hander into a straightaway alongside the road and the end of the trail was in sight. Right on this guys lawn. It was hilarious.

Here's some pics my bro-n-law took. I am working on the few I took. They didn't come out all that great so I'm trying to fix them. They are kind of over exposed and washed out.